Now, back to PPC landing page optimization. The tactics I describe in this post will not only improve your Quality Score which can increase your ad position for a lower cost, but can also help convert more people that come to your website.

Now, I will admit that most of these tips are for lead generation, not all of these tips would apply to an ecommerce website.

Minimal Navigation – The key to successful PPC landing pages is keep the user to from getting too distracted. Remove the top, left or right hand navigation from your main site on your PPC landing pages. Simply have your company logo at the top left of the page with a link to your homepage. That will be enough for people to click on if they need more information before converting.

Important information above the fold – Some people who are searching for a service like yours are sometimes in a hurry. If they enter your landing page and don’t see what they need to do within the first 5 seconds, they’re likely to bail. Be sure that your call to action, button, or form is above the fold. Be sure to check Google analytics to see what resolution size the majority of your users are currently using. This will help your designers make the important information above the fold for most of your users.

Easy-to-scan copy – I’ve worked on clients before that use way too much industry language in their PPC landing pages. You have to think that if an executive is looking for a service they’re likely to ask their assistant, intern or even a receptionist to do research before they engage in anything. While the executive may know all the industry jargon the assistant or intern may not. Also, these people who are searching for many companies are in a hurry, and simply just scan the copy on your landing page and don’t necessarily read through it all the way. So break up your copy into several paragraphs instead of one large paragraph. And I like to use the rule of thumb to put your benefits or advantages of choosing your company in a bullet list or numbered list so it stands out more prominently.

Few images to convey professionalism – Some PPC landing pages I have seen have a lot of well, dorky images that don’t convey any professionalism whatsoever. This can really turn off a potential client and make you look untrustworthy. Have one to 2 images on your PPC landing pages that show professional looking people, smiling as if they have just engaged in yoru services and are incredibly happy. Also having too many images on your PPC landing page will make your load times longer.

Fast loading times – One factor of the Google Adwords Quality Score is the load times of your pages. If it takes more than 10 seconds to fully load your pages that’s way to long. It should take less than 5 seconds. Large flash files, too many images, or animated graphics could hinder your fast load times. Also, if I have to wait for a flash animation to load before I can get information about your services, I’m more than likely not going to stick around or come back.

Dynamic headlines – Using dynamic headlines on your PPC landing pages is a great way to better target what the user is actually typing in the search box. Dynamic headlines are generated by tracking URLs that will insert the specific keyword into the headline. This is like using dynamic keyword insertion in your PPC ads, only it’s for your landing pages. If the page headline is more targeted to what the user typed in the search, they’re much more likely to continue reading and complete an action.

Short contact form – You could potentially be driving away qualified leads by having a contact form that is too long. If your contact form is running below the fold, it’s too long. You should be able to see the ‘submit’ button above the fold. Look at your current forms and only require the information you truly need. If someone sees a very long form, they may think, ‘This is going to take too long to fill out’ and could possibly skip that process altogether.

No Clutter – This is really a no-brainer, but unfortunately too many people make the mistake of dumping too much content on their PPC landing pages. You should have one main goal of your PPC landing page, not 3, 4 or 5. Remove any extra copy that isn’t necessarily useful to the user. Remove any unnecessary images or icons.

If you need any persuasion to make changes to your existing landing pages, just take this for an example: if you were to make changes on your landing pages, and increase your conversion rates by .5%, add that to your current sales and see how much of an increase that is. You would be surprised how much additional revenue .5% would drive.

If you have any additonal PPC landing page tips that will help increase conversions that I have not mentioned feel free to add them in the comments section!

This post is dedicated to all the PPC search advertisers out there who think they have done everything to their PPC account and still can’t get the results they need …

3 SHARES

http://www.thomascreekconcepts.com/ Tom Hale

Limiting navigation can be tricky.

Direct marketing conversions may go up, but so may bounce rate and bad vibe.

How many “bad first impressions” are worth how many conversions?

I have seen limited navigation done very badly. Seems to me one of the first rules of modern marketing is don’t piss people off (pop-ups, spam).

You entice people in, and then limit their choices too much, they ain’t happy. They feel strong-armed, maybe even duped.

My two-bit words of caution.

You do not want to unduly distract visitors from doing business with you. But in my opinion you should also respect their ability to make decisions about how they consume information.

-T

http://www.thomascreekconcepts.com/ Tom Hale

btw,

Nice post, as always.

You folks CRANK out the quality blogstuff at an astounding rate

-T

http://www.xrangeglobal.com Fakhrul Alam

Hi’ thanks for this easy steps for ppc marketing and but I would to add some bit of think, I have learn from other things that we have to write good article with good content and About Us Privacy Pociy Contact us pages is very important for google, because of google slap.

Some suggestion for templates from where we can get templates and does professional templates should be important and an opt in form is also necessary for ppc landing page.

One more question to ask that can we do PPC to directly blog post where we can pre sell any product

I understand what you are saying Tom – but isn’t Amber simply suggesting another form of personalization. If I’m running a campaign for Widgets and you get to a my homepage and have to search for the widgets…isn’t that worse? I think she’s on point – though there should be a quick way to review the rest of the site.

http://twitter.com/shivseo shiv

One of the best article for landing pages… it covers both organic and Paid search..

Thanks for your lovely article…

Shiv
twitter.com/shivseo

http://www.thomascreekconcepts.com/ Tom Hale

hi kimberly,

I don’t disagree with you or Amber. Just offering a cautionary alternative view.

-T

Terry

What about video on landing pages? Any data on how that may increase conversion?

http://www.ppchero.com Amber

@Terry, I think video on landing pages is fine as long as the load time isn’t too long. I think if the video is necessary or helpful to your potential customers then it will help increase conversions.

http://www.atlantarealestateinfo.com/ Atlanta RealEstate

Great advice. I’m quickly becoming a complete fan of yours Amber. All your posts are current and relevant and full of good information.

Users land here after searching for Creekstone Estates, then clicking an ad that says See all Listings in Creekstone Estates.

I’ve got 50+ of these, each aligned with it’s own 200+ long tail KWs and it’s own Ad. Getting lots of traffic, lots of conversions and paying very little.

AdWords works great if you take the time to set it up right!

Thanks for your articles,

Rob in Atlanta

http://www.performable.com/ Rex Dixon

Great tips here, but comment is onwhat you state in the last part:

>If you need any persuasion to make changes to your existing landing pages, just >take this for an example: if you were to make changes on your landing pages, >and increase your conversion rates by .5%, add that to your current sales and see >how much of an increase that is. You would be surprised how much additional >revenue .5% would drive.

Without any type of relevant testing, how does the site owner know what that .5% change is? In fact, without testing, they could be damaging their site by going .5% the other way, correct?

That is why there are companies like Performable – http://www.performable.com/ – to help people easily test their landing pages. They are working along with the person that created A/B Tests – http://www.abtests.com/ – the place to share your testing of your landing pages, product pages, sign up pages, etc.

It’s not only PPC landing pages that are making people money. It’s the overall conversion of whatever page you drive traffic too. At the end of the day though, without some testing, all the tips above really are like a roll of the dice.

Gambling with your web site / landing page should be something you are not encouraged to do. Leave the gambling in Las Vegas!